The Betting Pool
by prettyboylover666
Summary: Whenever one of the inmates at Arkham Asylum manages to escape, things turn competitive between the ones still locked away in there.


Jonathan Crane awoke to the sound of alarms.

Sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he found himself wondering what it was this time. Hearing alarms at Arkham Asylum was not an uncommon occurrence. In fact, Jonathan would go as far as to say it was borderline background noise to him at this point. The only level of interest they held for him at this point was just trying to guess what type of alarm it was. After all, the alarms going off could mean several different things.

There was the first level of alarms which he liked to dub 'False Alarms.' These, as one could guess, were the most harmless and innocent ones. These kind of alarms went off when one of the inmates thought it would be funny to pull the fire alarm to cause a little discord in the asylum or if one of the staff members accidently cooked their lunch for too long in the shitty microwave in the rec room, triggering the overly-sensitive smoke alarm. These were the most annoying alarms in his opinion, mainly because it was policy that if alarms went off, all of the inmates and staff had to be shuffled outside, whether rain, sleet, hail, or snow, and wait patiently for the firemen to arrive and confirm that it was indeed, a false alarm.

The second level of alarms he liked to dub 'Panic Alarms.' These were the most common. These were the types of alarms that went off when one of the doctors was being threatened or attacked by one of the inmates during private therapy sessions and they needed a guard ASAP. These types of alarms also seemed to go off a lot whenever Garfield Lynns was locked away in Arkham. How the pyromaniac was able to find so many inventive ways to start small fires was beyond Jonathan but he couldn't help but admire the man's creativity and resourcefulness. Perhaps he should try to strike up a conversation with the man. He seemed a little too rowdy for Jonathan's tastes, but perhaps he could learn a thing or two from him.

That was besides the point though.

Finally, there was the third type of alarms. He called these "Major Panic Alarms." These went off whenever some huge entity like that Doomsday monster was attacking Gotham City or when one of the inmates was trying to escape. These of course, were the loudest of alarms and the ones that got the most attention from the staff. The minute they went off, their cells were bolted shut, cops and guards would flood the halls like a bunch of cockroaches, and any inmate who happened to be out was quickly herded back into their cells lest they wanted to face the wrath of the guards who were looking for any excuse to use their police batons on someone.

These kinds of alarms were more common than they probably should be.

So as he listened, he couldn't help but wonder what type it was. The loudness suggested a Major Panic Alarm, but then again, when it was the crack of dawn any siren would sound loud…

His question was quickly answered as through the plexiglass window of his cell, he saw two guards come running forward with their guns drawn, shouting something incoherent through the wail of the alarms. All of a sudden, a mini-tremor rippled through the ground and before he or the cops could figure out what was happening, Jonathan watched as a giant, thick green plant of some sort erupted from the floor and smashed through the ceiling. It reminded him sort of that old Jack and the Beanstalk story. The guards screams of terror were cut short as thin green tendrils wrapped around them like pythons and soon they were being lifted through the hole in the ceiling, their guns clattering uselessly to the floor.

A few seconds later, he passively watched as Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy, pranced past, giving her plant monstrosity a grateful pat before disappearing from sight. So that was it. Somehow Pamela managed to find a way out of her extremely chemical resistant cell and was now leaving. Jonathan hoped she managed to seduce and coax another male employee into letting her out again. He liked seeing the Arkham staff scrambling around with the media on trying to explain why that seemed to repeatedly happen…

Well, he supposed with Pamela out and about and utilizing her powers, he figured the alarms weren't going to go off for a while, which meant he wouldn't be able to get any sleep. Letting out a resigned sigh, he put on his glasses, got off of his bed, and idly padded up to the glass of his cell to watch the ensuing chaos.

The rest of the inmates of the asylum were awake as well, giving different reactions to the events going down. Some of the inmates were simply yelling and jeering at everyone and everything, wanting to do nothing than contribute and add to the noise and chaos. Others were like him and simply rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. Some of the more mentally deteriorated inmates were crying and panicking because of the sirens, curling up in fetal positions and the like. Others were begging Pamela to free them as well. Hah, those words would fall on deaf ears. Pamela Isley cared for no one but herself. The only person he could see her possibly helping out was Harleen Quinzel, and seeing as he hadn't seen the loud blonde dashing after her, he could only assume she wasn't feeling that generous that night.

For an hour or so, it was nothing but the noise and chaos. Guards, Arkham staff, and police came and went across the halls, writing down a bunch of legal jargon, talking things out, assessing damages, the like. Some of the louder inmates jeered at them, but they were quite pointedly ignored.

Eventually though, the alarms ceased to sound, the employees all seemed to disappear from the hall, and many of the loudmouthed inmates, having yelled everything they could possibly want to yell, grew bored and retired back to their beds. A few doctors stayed behind to console the crying and panicking inmates but otherwise, the halls were empty except for the plants Pamela summoned from the ground. Never once did the police or Batman come walking through with Pamela in tow, leaving him to assume that she escaped. Good, that meant his patience had been worth it. Not that he was happy the woman escaped, he honestly didn't care for the redhead all that much. But her escape meant that he would have another chance at the betting pool that was about to start.

Once things were quiet enough, Two-Face's ragged voice was the first to cut through, "We bet two thousand dollars that the bitch will get caught and thrown back here in three weeks tops by the Bat."

"Ivy? She's usually got a good record of staying under the radar after escaping so she can put her plans to action, so I will thrown in three thousand dollars and bet that she will last a good two months before she gets caught…" Edward Nygma piped up two cells right of Jonathan. Suddenly, he let out a quizzical hum and said, "Unless… Quinn! Did Isley say anything to you about hiding out in the Amazon or anything?"

"I don't know, and even if I did, why would I tell you?" Harley snapped grumpily. Something told Jonathan that Harley was feeling a bit hurt by the fact that Pamela had left her in Arkham. His thoughts got confirmed even more when she petulantly said, "I bet she doesn't even last a week because she's being so cocky right now!"

"Ah, ah, ah, you know that's not how this game works, toots. You gotta bet some sort of compensation if you're gonna participate. So you going to back that up with some sort of reward?" Two-Face's gravelly voice growled out mercilessly, clearly not caring about Harley's feelings. He often liked to play rule-enforcer during the bets, and took the role very seriously.

Harley didn't seem to want to back up her bet as she simply huffed and went silent, probably to pout or cry. It seemed as if Harley wouldn't be participating in the betting pool tonight.

Jonathan listened as the others threw down their offerings and bets. Most of them were of monetary value, but a few of the economically struggling rogues threw down various weapons or territory and other things of the like, which Harvey would allow or unallow depending on how much value he thought said items were worth.

He forgot when exactly this whole little thing got started, but at some point, the inmates of Arkham Asylum weren't satisfied with just sitting back and accepting that one of their own escaped. They had to make a game out of it, and soon, the betting pool began.

The rules were simple. Any participating player would place a bet on how long escaped rogue would stay out. If someone managed to estimate the right time, they would be rewarded with all of the things offered. Pretty simple stuff. If a person lost, they would be forced to cough up what they offered once they escaped. Everyone in the Asylum knew better than to break these rules. Once, one of the inmates, whose name Jonathan couldn't remember, had betted more than he could actually deliver, and when he escaped, he had tried to run away from Gotham without paying back any of his debts. To make a long story short, that same man was found dead in a dingy apartment, riddled with bullets. Anything that he had that had even a scrap of value was gone. Even his bank accounts had been completely been flushed clean. It was not a game to screw around with.

It was an incredibly hard game to play as well. Jonathan had participated multiple times now and he hadn't won once. Gotham City was an unpredictable place and all of the rogues were unpredictable people. So many factors had to be put into play with this kind of thing. For example, results depended on how long the rogue was planning to hide from the police at the beginning, how fast the Batman caught them, the like. Usually Two-Face with his knowledge as a former district attorney and Edward Nygma, with his knowledge of statistics, were the ones who ended up winning the most games, but Jonathan wasn't ready to count himself out yet. He'd gotten really close with a couple of his bets, and if he won just once, then not only would he have more than enough money to fund future plans, but it would give Scarecrow a wider range of territory to roam without having to worry about getting jumped by random henchmen. Plus… think of how many books he could buy with that much money. The thought was a pleasurable one.

He usually found himself placing his bets on the rogues escaping for longer periods of time, as he had noticed that ever since this game got invented, there seemed to be a recurring trend of rogues actually being out for way longer than they had been before its conception. He liked to think it was to prove a point. He knew for a fact when he last escaped Arkham a year ago, he'd actually spent more time than usual concocting his toxin and enjoying his time out before going out and striking because he wanted to cost all of the rogues who thought less of him and his abilities some major cash. Pamela rarely participated in bets, but she was also a very prideful woman and, like him, would probably want to prove a point as well. So, feeling confident, he said, "I bet a gallon of my fear toxin that she will last five months."

Harvey and the other rogues used to be skeptical on letting him offer fear toxin as compensation. At least until all they all realized how good it was at scaring the truth out of someone or to help incapacitate officers who might be in their way during missions, so now he was allowed to offer it all he wanted. Thankfully, a gallon was easy enough for him to make too once he got enough materials, so it didn't take way too much away from him either.

"Oooh, betting big Scarecrow," some inmate Jonathan didn't know the name of taunted.

He just shrugged at that, a pointless gesture considering he doubted the inmate could see him but he said, "She's smart, got killer plants, powers, and I imagine enough money to buy any warehouse she might need to hide out in for a while. I am sure she can take care of herself." "

Jonathan at least hoped she could live up to the hype he was giving her. After all, it was the least the bitch could do after she had left him to die by one of her plants last time he met her outside of Arkham (thank god he had his scythe at the time which allowed him to take down the beast), so she could at least give him a good reward by not getting her ass captured.

Only time would tell though.

* * *

 **A/N: Forgot to upload this here.**

 **Originally this was going to be a chapter in a multi-chaptered thing I had planned that was just about the average day-to-day life of the Arkham inmates and stuff... but with how busy my Spring Semester has been and the fact that I didn't know where it would even end, I kind of scrapped that idea. Maybe in the future it can come to be, but for now, I am too busy to handle such a thing. But since this was finished, I decided to edit and post it.**

 **The alarm thing is actually somewhat inspired by my college dorm because the smoke alarms here go off all the time and it is always for something stupid. I am sure the fire department wants to strangle some of us with their fire hoses at this point.**

 **Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and as always, criticism is appreciated.**


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